If you’re not frequently home it’s nice to have a camera feed to make sure everything is okay. I use ESPHome with super cheap ESP32 camera modules personally. The ESP32 cameras have access to the local network only, reaching the internet only via my home assistant installation which I’m in control of. They don’t have any capability to record on their own and unless I’ve enabled the alarm no amount of motion can trigger them to record.

I once caught management entering my apartment unannounced while I was out of town as a result of them. I had a very angry call with the leasing office over that.